SPRINGS INFORMANT CONVICTED IN DRUG CASE

A Coral Springs man who helped send a corrupt former FBI agent to jail was convicted Monday on drug smuggling charges and will be sentenced today.

A federal jury in Pittsburgh found Hilmer Burdette Sandini, 63, guilty of nine counts of importing Colombian cocaine via Miami and distributing it in western Pennsylvania from 1981 to 1984, said Bruce Teitlebaum, assistant U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh.

The minimum sentence that Sandini could receive is 10 years in prison and the maximum is life, Teitlebaum said.

Sandini is already serving a 15-year sentence for a 1979 marijuana-smuggling conviction in Alabama.

His first trial last fall was canceled after he collapsed twice and claimed he could not testify because of chest pains.

Sandini's wife, Carol, 32, his daughter, Sandra Sandini, 23, both of Coral Springs, and reputed Mafia associate and convicted counterfeiter Vincent Ciraolo, 55, of Deerfield Beach, were found guilty in that trial in November of conspiring to distribute cocaine, among other charges. Four western Pennsylvania men also were convicted of smuggling marijuana.

Sandini was the government's informant in the case of former FBI agent Daniel A. Mitrione Jr., 38, of Cooper City. Mitrione pleaded guilty last March to accepting more than $850,000 in bribes in exchange for stealing more than 90 pounds of cocaine while working undercover with Sandini on an investigation called "Operation Airlift."

In 1982, Mitrione and Sandini infiltrated narcotics rings based at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. However, Mitrione got involved in the ring and later admitted skimming cocaine from a shipment that he and Sandini were supposed to give to the FBI, according to Sandini's indictment last year.

Mitrione resigned from the FBI and is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

Sandini also will have to forfeit a home at 1077 SW 26th Ave. in Deerfield Beach and three Fort Lauderdale companies he owns or co-owns, Teitlebaum said. They are AAA Traders Inc.; E. G. Rockwell and Associates, which prosecutors said was also a front for his Pittsburgh smuggling operation; and Fashion Properties Inc.